This morning, we received an email from a big movie studio, asking if we’d be interested in seeing a sneak preview of an upcoming major summer film. As you might imagine, this caught us a little off-guard, since we’ve never received any sneak preview tickets at the Police Museum before. After the shock wore off, we decided to press our luck and see how many tickets we could get. In the end, they gave us 20 (!) pairs of tickets for the screening. (Screening is in the evening of Thursday, June 25th)

We can’t tell you what film this is for yet, but we’re pretty sure you’d enjoy checking this one out before the masses. So, we’ve decided to run a contest or two in the next week to give you a chance to come join us. The first contest, we’re calling… “Me and a Tommy”.

Doesn’t everyone need an Anti-Bandit Gun?

As you may know, we’re pretty proud of the eight Thompson Submachine Guns we have in our museum collection. Invented by John T. Thompson in 1919, the Thompson became infamous during the Prohibition era. It was a common sight of the time, being used by both law enforcement officers and criminals. (Vancouver Police bought 42 of them, at $50 a piece!) The Thompson was also known informally as the “Tommy Gun”, the “Trench Broom”, the “Trench Sweeper”, the “Chicago Piano”, the “Chicago Typewriter”, and the “Chopper”. (Thanks for the succinct write-up, Wikipedia!)

To win this contest, you need to take a photograph of yourself with a Tommy; could be a person, an object, a poster, arts-and-crafts, whatever… be creative, as long as it’s clearly a “Tommy’. Once you’ve got the picture, comment on this blog entry with your name and a link to your picture, or post a Twitpic on Twitter with the hashtag “#vpmtommy”. (No photoshops, or digital edits, please!)

To summarize the contest:

1) Take a picture of you and a Tommy
2) Get it online
3) ???
4) PROFIT!!!

All entries must be up before 5pm on Sunday, June 21.

Afterward, our elite panel of judge(s) will pick the most creative, unique or awesome entries and award the selected contributors each a pair of tickets to the screening. We may award as few as one or as many as five sets of tickets for this contest, depending on how much awesomeness we receive. You can submit multiple photos, but you can only win once.

Good luck to you all!

ps. The first person to post a real picture of themselves with Tommy Chong, (no photoshopping!!!) wins automatically!